Peaky
by mattmetzger
Summary: A nightmare is nothing but a brain processing recent events, and having a bad light to do it in. It will run its course. So why can't Sherlock just leave? (Post Hound of the Baskervilles.)


**Note: Bit of an aftermath-shot to 'Hound of the Baskervilles.' Because I am not convinced terrifying an ex-soldier who a) has been shown to suffer from PTSD and b) owns a fully-functional handgun, complete with ammunition, is the best idea. And then my imagination ran with it, and yeah.**

* * *

_Peaky_

Sharpton had called him peaky the day before. Mrs. Hudson had said the same thing when they got home, exclaiming how 'dreadful and peaky you look, dear!' And John hadn't said anything. No, well, technically, he had, he'd waved them both off in that regimentally polite manner of his, but it hadn't amounted to anything. Saying words did not equate to saying _something_. Saying words could easily, idiomatically, be saying _nothing_.

He'd gone to bed early. Without a cup of tea. Had stopped moving around in his room six to seven minutes earlier than usual. John was a man of habit, when Sherlock let him be: he would make tea, take a cup up to his room, and pace around it, checking the exact locations of his things. A habit from the army, Sherlock guessed; he had ruled out OCD some weeks ago, as John was only so rigidly habitual about his bedroom, and didn't extend it to other spaces. He hadn't so much as made the hotel room beds during their trip to Baskerville.

The evening they returned, Mrs. Hudson called him peaky, and John had gone up to bed without tea. And had gone to the bed. Physically gotten into bed - Sherlock had heard the creak - and stilled. Sherlock had waited - perhaps John was reading (although he took nothing up with him, and John didn't keep books or newspapers in his room) or simply tired (although how could a man be tired after a long train journey, for God's sake, it wasn't like either of them had been _doing _anything all day). Perhaps he wished to be left alone (very likely) and that was all (rather less likely).

Or perhaps, Sherlock decided, as the first restless sounds began around an hour later, John really had looked peaky.

Sherlock rarely entered John's room. He had no reason to. John spent most of his time - presuming, of course, that he was in the flat at all - in the main room or the kitchen. He kept a soldier's time, rising at six o'clock every morning with a precision that could be used to set a watch, and kept a soldier's habits prior to inspection. The odd time Sherlock had been up here (usually to look through John's things, because he ought to know all the variables, after all) he had noted the perfectly-polished boots side by side at the foot of the bed, the clothes folded on the chair in the corner, and the sharp edges of the sheets where John all but ironed them into place.

(This was probably a room Mrs. Hudson would have called soulless. Sherlock had long since given up trying to tell soulless from soulful when it came to inanimate objects and rooms.)

Sherlock had observed John sleeping before. This was not the usual. The usual was a boneless sagging into the frame of whatever furniture he happened to occupy, and little else. John slept like other people died: soundless, simple, and quick. He was quick to sleep, quick to wake again, and for the period inbetween, motionless and silent.

This was not the usual.

The sheets were twisted, suggesting erratic movement. John's clothes were on the floor, crumpled, rather confirming Mrs. Hudson's assessment of 'dreadful.' His hands and arms, visible and bare to the shoulders, twitched in erratic spasms. He made guttural sounds in the back of his throat; possibly words, likely nothing so coherent as yet. Bad dreams. Possibly flashbacks, but Sherlock doubted that it had progressed that far.

He hesitated.

In the open doorway, Sherlock hesitated. Needless to say, this wasn't comfortable territory. Sherlock had never seen (or heard, for that matter) anyone having a nightmare. Watching John twitching and muttering, head rolling loosely on the pillow, Sherlock searched his mind for any data on treating nightmares, and came up empty. It wasn't relevant. Or it hadn't been.

He could identify the source easily enough when John began to breathe in deep, rasping breaths, the same way he had breathed in the Baskerville lab. Sherlock recognised the technique, designed to calm. It wasn't working.

Still he hesitated. There were three options: wake him, try to calm him without waking him, and leave the nightmare to run its course.

The first option was dangerous. John's predictability had gone: he was reacting differently now, and Sherlock could not rely on him being calm upon awakening, or even quick to wake. A panicking brain transitioning from unconsciousness to consciousness was unlikely to react calmly. John's post-traumatic stress disorder only complicated things. Likely, it _was _complicating things. He would likely wake violently. Sherlock had not yet drawn firm enough conclusions regarding John's physical strength, which would be exaggerated in a semi-conscious, panic-stricken state regardless.

Option two was not optimal either. Regardless of the fact that Sherlock had little idea how to calm someone without alerting them to his presence, and touching John was out of the question for exactly the same reasons as the first option, introducing an unusual variable (John was not, after all, accustomed to Sherlock's voice in his room) to a brain suffering from PTSD was unwise. A brain suffering from PTSD that had been recently exposed to a heightened level of fear and a hallucinogenic drug.

Sherlock felt a twinge low in his gut.

The third option was the wisest, from his point of view. No harm would come to John in his own room. He was not in any physical danger. Nightmares were simply the processes of a brain computing recent events. They were only dreams, and had no power to hurt anyone, no matter how - Sherlock winced - distressed the dreamer sounded. No matter how..._peaky_.

And yet he didn't move.

John's mutterings were getting louder, the occasional 's'here, s'here' escaping through those deliberate wheezes, but Sherlock estimated that the events at Baskerville had become confused with the war, as the occasional word seemed to be a name he didn't recognise, and certainly not one from any of their cases. Distressing dreams, but dreams.

_And yet he didn't move_.

It...seemed wrong, somehow. It was the logical option, and yet something whispering around the back of Sherlock's mind did not want to choose it. Something was amiss. He had overlooked something, or the choice would be obvious, and he could leave. He scanned the room, eyes flicking about the bed, and as a pale arm twitched towards the side table, John's mutterings rising into a half-shriek, half-command, Sherlock saw it.

John's handgun.

He knew every inch of Mrs. Hudson's house; he stepped around the creaky boards and ghosted around the side of the bed in silence, his hand reaching the weapon before John's blindly searching fingers. They skittered and clutched wildly at the wood; he half-shouted the name again, but Sherlock retreated before he could be noticed, the gun heavy in his hands.

He pulled the door to behind him, and took the stairs as quietly as possible. The nightmare would be over soon; John would startle himself awake. He would likely come down later for a cup of tea. Sherlock had seen him moving about enough in the night to know that if it was the first time he had witnessed one of these nightmares, it was not the first one John had suffered.

As he reached the bottom stair, Sherlock turned the gun over in his hands. The twinge in his gut was almost painful. He should have known better than to use John for the experiment. It was necessary for the case...but he should have known better.

The safety was off, and the gun was loaded.

John came down an hour later, pale-faced. The lines in his skin were deeper; he rolled his eyes at Sherlock's violin, and offered a cup of tea.

"You look peaky," was all that Sherlock could think of to say.


End file.
